


It Will Come Back

by orphan_account



Category: GLOW (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Compromised, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-20 17:15:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20678999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sam has been doing his best to keep his head down and help Justine's movie be a success, but life has gotten so complicated in the past year. From the look of it, things aren't getting any easier.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I'm in love with these idiots and wanted to contribute to the little (but growing!) pile of fic for this pairing. I'm bad at writing but would love kind constructive feedback.

_ Don't let me in with with no intention to keep me _

_ Jesus Christ, don't be kind to me _

_ Honey don't feed me I will come back _

  
  
  


“C’mon, Ruth,” he begged her. “Get in in the car. Please.” Oh God and he really was begging her, wasn't he? He was Sam fucking Sylvia and he didn’t embarrass himself with public displays like the current show that he and Ruth were putting on. 

Her arms remained crossed, her eyes refusing to meet his, and wet with emotion. 

He wants her so much, and he knew from the start that he could never just be happy. Shit, they got all of 5 minutes of being in love together, and now they got this instead. 

“Please Ruth.” He hears himself mutter against his better judgement.

She turns from him.

Fuck.

He gets in his car, and drives away.

~~~

**Two Months Later**

  
  


He's exhausted all the time. It's been so long since he's worked on a film, and he's never worked on anything that has such a real shot at succeeding. He gives it his all every second that he's on set. Justine has a real chance here at the career that he could never have. He never had anyone to keep him out of his own way, and he's going to make damn sure that he does everything he can to make Justine's movie a success. Not that she really needs much help, as infuriating as it is. The girl has great instincts and he's equal parts annoyed and proud. 

His hand starts to reach for the carton of cigarettes in his breast pocket before he remembers that he's not smoking, and hasn't kept any on his person for weeks. Not only is he helping his daughter on her movie, he's also trying to stay alive for her a while longer. Which is also annoying. 

"Knock knock." Justine loudly announces as she walks into the room to avoid startling Sam. "I thought we were going to work on this tomorrow?" She joined him next to the monitors and sat down in the chair next to him.

"Yeah, well, the schedule is pretty tight." 

"But if we do it together we'll get it done faster. You look exhausted, let's just go home." 

Sam feels his anger bubble in his chest and fights hard against his instincts to lash out. "We need to get this shit done Justine." 

"You need to sleep or you're going to make mistakes. We've had a 12 hour day, if we do this now we'll just need to go back and fix it later."

He sighs. She's right. 

"Yeah, okay." He stands up and grabs his car keys from the dish on his desk. "Let's get some fucking sleep." 

He might even be exhausted enough to really sleep tonight.

His dreams very rarely differed much these days. Chestnut curls and huge eyes that saw past all of his bullshit. It used to be that these dreams were frustrating, but since he had last seen Ruth they had started to wake him in a cold sweat and triggered these weird episodes. Once or twice a week he would wake in a panic and not be able to regain his composure without great effort and some length of time passing. 

Scotch made them worse. So he just didn't sleep much.

They drove back to his place with the dull hum of the radio to keep them both awake. The two had been spending so much time together over the past weeks that they had settled into a place where they could enjoy a comfortable silence. The car pulled into the drive and father and daughter drug their bodies out of their seats and made their way inside. 

Sam unlocked the door and picked up the mail that had collected on the floor during the past day. He sifted through them looking for anything that would turn his lights off and as he did his eyes caught a familiar script. His eyes were exhausted from spending his night looking at monitors, but he was certain that this was her handwriting. 

“Goodnight Sam.” Justine half-heartedly waved as she made her way to her room.

“Yeah, you too kid.” Sam replied without looking up from the envelope. 

~~~

He sat on the foot of his bed with the un-opened envelope in his hands. 

Should he even open it? It was probably nothing right? Fuck what if it actually was nothing, some stupid progress report that she had forgotten to send before GLOW wrapped in Vegas. The only thing that would be worse than it being nothing, would be if it was something. Sam tossed the letter onto the bed as he stood up to walk to the kitchen. He needed a glass of water. Truthfully he needed something a lot stiffer than water, but the water was going to have to be good enough for now. 

To his surprise the kitchen light was already on, and the fridge wide open as Justine shuffled around to find what she was looking for. She turned to him with wide eyes and a tortilla in hand.

“Oh shit, I didn’t know you we’r- are you okay? You look like shit?” Justine walked over to him as she ripped off a bite of her tortilla, not unlike a wild beast. 

“Yeah, just need some water.”

“Are you like...tripping right now?”

“What? No Justine.”

“You’ve just got a really weird look going on. Are you sure everything is okay?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and stared at the linoleum flooring. Shit. He was really going to do this.

“So I got a letter from Ruth, and it’s probably nothing, but it’s so complicated with her that I can’t just get myself to read the fucking thing.” 

Justine slowly chewed and lifted her eyebrows, but was quiet with thought. 

“Why is it complicated? Or, more complicated than normal? You two have always had a weird thing that you made work.” 

“Well in Vegas I kind of told her I loved her an-”

“SAM! You told her that?” 

“Yeah, yeah, and then after she auditioned for us we met up for drinks and she told me that she loved me too an-”

“How did you not tell me any of this?!”

“Just listen! She told me that, and then I told her that she wasn’t going to get that part and then she kinda lost it, and I left. I haven’t seen her or spoken to her since.”

Justine was finally quiet, but her eyes were full of sympathy for her father. Which only annoyed Sam. He wasn’t interested in pity, he had more than enough all by himself.

“Can I read the letter?” She whispers. 

Sam turns to his room to go fetch the damned thing. When he returns Justine has turned on the light in the dining room and is sitting at the table. He lets out a dramatic sigh before handing it over to his daughter. 

Justine rips into the side of the envelope carefully as Sam watches her, holding his breath. 

It has to be nothing...Right? He had tried to talk it through with Ruth and she wasn’t interested. She was so upset that she wouldn’t want anything to do with him that wasn’t strictly business.

After what feels like a lifetime has passed Justine folds the letter and sets it on the table.

“That’s definitely** not** nothing.”

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the cliffhanger with that last chapter! lol I'm dramatic and couldn't help myself. This chapter is a little shorter than I would have liked but I've been sick and haven't been the most efficient writer. Hope you like it! Thanks for all of your very kind comments :)

_A woman's voice!_

  
_ I quickly ran_

  
_ Into the trees with empty hands._

He was a grown man for fuck sake, so why couldn’t he just read the damned thing. He felt panicky and backed into a corner. 

“Come on man, you’ve just got to rip the band-aid off.” Justine waved the letter in her hand trying to motion for him to take it, but all he could see was how long it looked. It was way too long and hand-written to be a brief business exchange. 

“I don’t think I can do it.”

“Sam, I’ll read the fucking thing out to you if that’s what I have to do, but you can’t just ignore this, you’ll drive yourself insane.”

Sam sighed and ran both his hands through his hair before sitting down at the table opposite Justine. He held his hand out to her without looking up from the plastic checkered tablecloth, and his daughter handed over the tri-folded paper.

_ Sam, _

_ I hope you’re doing well. You’re probably really busy with Justine’s film and I hope that everything is going smoothly, or at least as smoothly as a Sam Sylvia production can possibly go. _

He almost smiled at that.

_ I just don’t know what to say Sam. You’re right. I’m impossible. You have absolutely every right to be upset with me and never want to see me again. _

_ I want to give you space, but I really need to try to give you the apology you deserve. You’ve been such an important part of my life, and it wasn’t fair for me to shut down instead of trying to meet you halfway and talk through everything. I just keep thinking about how you’re the person I want to talk to about this, but I can’t go to you for advice because I’ve worked so hard to wreck everything in my life. If I’ve ruined things past the point of salvaging them, I completely understand. _

_ Ruth _

  


Sam’s eyes went desperately to Justine.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” He cried out exasperatedly. “Fucking Christ Ruth.”

Justine quickly stood up and brought her hands up in an attempt to diffuse Sam. “It doesn’t sound all bad, she clearly misses you and it seems like she wants to have you in her life, I think.” 

“She’s trying to fucking ditch me, and has convinced herself it’s my idea.” Sam tossed the letter back onto the kitchen table before angrily throwing his hands on his hips. He could feel his emotionally and physically compromised heart working overtime with the stress of the situation. He needed to gain some sense of control of the situation and calm the fuck down. He made a conscious effort to take a few deep breaths and close his eyes with the intention of tricking his body into believing that he was calm. He just needed to forget for a moment that he was so completely far from calm. He was obsessed with a much younger woman with a taste for self-sabotage and anything overly dramatic. What a wining fucking combination that was shaping up to be. 

Sam’s deep breathing exercise transformed into a frustrated groan and he pulled out one of the creaky diner style chairs from table to sit in. “It’s just that I’m _ so _bad at this. I can barely get myself to stop going into self destruct mode, how in hell am I supposed to convince her to stop spiraling long enough to talk to this over?”

Justine shifted uncomfortably in her chair, she clearly felt as though she was out of her depth. Listening to the dramatic romantic details from her friends was something that she could handle, but trying to give relationship advice to her father was entirely uncharted and felt much bigger somehow. This was about Sam and Ruth, two real adults with real adult problems. 

“I mean, when Billy and I fight I’ll storm off but I’m always more pissed if he doesn’t at least try to follow me. Trying to talk to her would let her know that you still want to try to make it work. Could you call her? ” 

“I don’t exactly have her phone number handy, it’s not as if she wrote it in my goddamn yearbook.” Sam angrily snapped back. “ I certainly don’t want to call every fucking Ruth Wilder in the city looking for her.”

“Jesus okay, I’m trying to help you man.”

He wrung his fingers together as he quickly forced himself into some level of composure. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.” 

Was this Ruth trying to convince herself that he wanted nothing to do with her? Or was she just trying to soften the blow by making Sam think that this is what he wanted too? What did he want? He hadn’t even allowed himself to really think about the possibility of ever seeing her again. When they had met up at the bar he expected that they would tip-toe around each other like they always had, well with the exception being that evening they shared in the Fan-Tan’s hot tub. 

Sam looked across the table to his daughter and gave her a small smile that didn’t even come close to reaching his eyes. “We have a lot of shit to get done tomorrow, let’s just go to bed. Besides, I’m pretty sure it isn’t normal for a father to dump his weird relationship stuff onto his daughter.”

He stood and grabbed the envelope and letter up off of the table. 

“What gave you the idea that we’re a normal father and daughter? I don’t know about you man, but I don’t know any kids who’re making movies with the parent they met a year ago.”

The smile that came with from Sam after that was genuine. “G’night kid.”

He turned from her and finally made his way back to his bedroom. He gently closed the door behind him and once again felt a crushing weight crash down against his heart and lungs. The only light that illuminated the space was the desk lamp that sat next to his typewriter, the room felt oppressively dark and empty. He moved to sit at his desk, resigning himself to the idea of very little sleep once again. He carefully placed the envelope and letter under the lamp. Of all the things of Ruth’s to have in his room, this isn’t what he would have chosen. A forgotten cardigan, a dog-eared script, or even a fucking bobby pin would have been a much better alternative. 

He studied the envelope looking at her careful cursive writing, desperate to try to glean any information hidden in the script, as if he could tell how she felt as she wrote. His fingers itched for a cigarette, even more than usual. How easily he could have ran to the 24-hour gas station down the road. He began to plunk at his type-writer instead. 

Alright. If Ruth wanted to write to him like some forlorn lover, he could fucking work with that.


End file.
